A sustainable oasis in Addis Ababa, the ZOMA Museum collapses the nature-and-culture dichotomy

By Eilís Doolan

Imagine twenty great museums.

Which ones come to mind? Art history students might think of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Louvre, or the Rijksmuseum. Yet, if asked to make such a list, how many of us would include a museum on the African continent? How come, as students at one of the premier universities in Britain, most of us have been taught so little about African museums? In 1971, Linda Nochlin launched an attack on the male-dominated arts establishment by asking the question: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Nochlin showed that the term ‘great’ was in itself a male construction, excluding women by definition. For the same reason, we could ask: why have African artists been excluded from art history? And, just as much to the point, why does our list not include any African institutions? 

Ethiopia – fabled birthplace of the coffee bean, home to the mythical Queen Sheba, and site of pilgrimage for Rastafarians – is home to one institution which deserves to be on this list. In its sprawling and rapidly developing capital of Addis Ababa, on a four hundred square metre plot of land in the Mekanisa district, the ZOMA Museum presents a compelling example of a cutting-edge arts centre with the values of sustainability and rediscovered heritage at its core. The result of a long-time collaboration between anthropologist and art curator Meskerem Assegued and contemporary artist Elias Sime, Assegued compared the project to working on a “large outstretched canvas” of land. Rather than holding a permanent collection, the ZOMA houses temporary exhibitions of both Ethiopian and international art. Yet, ZOMA’s mission goes beyond the artistic—it provides a model of sustainable architecture which stands in stark contrast to the cheap urban developments in the Ethiopian capital. By creating a peaceful oasis in the midst of the city, the museum hopes to foster a culture of environmentally conscious art projects in Ethiopia.   

Photo: James Cohan 

After 25 years of dreaming, the ZOMA Museum officially opened on March 24th 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After founding the ZOMA Contemporary Art Centre in 2002, Assegued and Sime started to acquire land in 2013 with the hopes of adding a permanent and useful arts institution to Addis Ababa’s landscape. They acquired a two-acre plot of polluted land in Mekanisa, on which they began building the ZOMA Museum. Motivated by a desire to recover the vernacular tradition of building with mud, Assegued and Sime employed builders from across Ethiopia to construct the museum using a traditional wattle and daub technique called chikka, according to which a bamboo frame is stitched with strings and subsequently filled with mud and straw. The result is a village of hand-built mud huts with circular thatched roofs able to withstand weathering for decades. The decision to employ indigenous architectural styles was more than deliberate – it reflects Assegued and Sime’s desire to create an architecture determined by the land, rather than doing it the other way around. Indeed, by using organic materials found on-site, the land itself becomes “primary material for design.” (Berlanda) The result is remarkable, bringing together traditional and contemporary architecture in a design grounded by the principle of organic growth.

Photo: Michel Temteme

The use of mud as the primary building material also allowed Elias Sime to decorate the walls of the ZOMA Museum. The mud walls take a month to fully harden, leaving a window of time during which Sime can interfere. Sime has intricately carved and sculpted the mud into patterns inspired by Ethiopian culture, ranging from concentric circles to the four stages of a butterfly’s life cycle. On one of the museum’s walls, Sime incorporates the Ethiopian Ge’ez numerical system, one of the oldest written languages in the world. 

Walls of the ZOMA Museum, covered with complex reliefs

Photo: Michel Temteme

Sime is most known for his sculptural assemblages using recycled waste. Having studied art in Ethiopia during its twelve years under communist military rule, Sime initially trained in Soviet Social Realism, before developing this style in the 1990s. Instead of working with paint, bronze, or plaster, Sime re-imagines the artist’s toolbox as one filled with organic materials and urban debris: mud, straw, bottle caps, buttons. For other works, Sime employs electrical waste as his material—motherboards, electrical wires, and headphone sets become his pictorial devices. Often these materials are assembled to depict vast urban cityscapes, sometimes referencing Mercato, Addis Ababa’s open-air market (the largest of its kind in Africa), where Sime buys many of his materials. Sime is a contemporary cartographer, creating monumental and often monochromatic masterpieces of modernist abstraction. What’s more, Sime’s choice of materials reflects his ability to find renewal everywhere. Indeed, this is what the toxic e-waste dumped in Ethiopia by the West has in common with the mud walls of the ZOMA Museum; Whether organic or electronic, Sime’s materials always possess the potential for renewal. Sime doesn’t simply envision the transformation of Addis Ababa’s landscape—he enacts it, using all materials available. 

Elias Sime, Tightrope: Noiseless 1, 2019, reclaimed electrical wires and components on panel

Photo: James Cohan

Aside from the ZOMA Museum’s architectural dimension, its social functions are equally remarkable. In addition to its central gallery space and smaller exhibition rooms, the museum also boasts a library, café, gift shop, workshop spaces, and a labyrinthine garden filled with vegetables and medicinal plants. The garden fulfils multiple purposes: it purifies polluted water coming from the city, as well as being a central part of the ZOMA School founded by Assegued and Sime. The school adopts an alternative curriculum, inspired by precedents like Alice Water’s ‘Edible Schoolyard’ and Montessori Schools. Students at the ZOMA School learn to garden and cook using plants from the museum’s garden, and even learn to milk cows belonging to the museum. The school confirms the scope of Assegued and Sime’s vision to create an arts institution which not only exists in harmony with nature, but which has a real social function. ZOMA aims to reconnect humans to their environment – a connection which seems to be at threat of going extinct.

Photo: James Cohan

To say that the ZOMA Museum has been a success would be an understatement. In fact, ZOMA’s vision for ecological art spaces within the city has garnered attention from within Ethiopia and beyond. After completing their lush oasis in Mekanasia, Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed asked Assegued and Sime to transform the gardens at his residency. More recently, Assegued and Sime have started work on another project financed by the prime minister: a village of new ZOMA buildings on Mount Entoto, where the city of Addis Ababa was first established in the late nineteenth century. There, Assegued and Sime have collaborated on designs for multiple greenhouse style buildings. Although much more contemporary in their material, the glass buildings will be constructed responsibly, that is, without changing the natural landscape. Nevertheless, ZOMA will undoubtedly leave its mark on the Ethiopian artistic and cultural landscape, hopefully securing its rightful spot in our future lists. 

Bibliography: 

Berlanda, Tomà. “Ground control: The ZOMA Museum by Meskerem Assegued and Elias Sime.” The Architectural Review. Published 10 February 2020. Accessed 5 February 2021. https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/ground-control-the-zoma-museum-by-meskerem-assegued-and-elias-sime.

Cohan, James. “ZOMA Museum: Founded by Elias Sime and Meskerem Assegued.” James Cohan. Accessed 5 February 2021. https://www.jamescohan.com/public-exhibitions/zoma-museum?view=slider#2. 

Cohan, James. “Elias Sime. James Cohan. Accessed 5 February 2021. https://www.jamescohan.com/artists/elias-sime?view=slider#19.

Morgan, Susan. “THE TALK: Hut Couture.” The New York Times. Published April 19 2009. Accessed 5 February 2021. https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9C03EFDA1538F93AA25757C0A96F9C8B63.html.

“Ethiopia’s Zoma Museum celebrates art and nature.” Deutsche Welle. Accessed 5 February 2021. https://www.dw.com/en/ethiopias-zoma-museum-celebrates-art-and-nature/av-50044475.